Mental Illness Management and Recovery in Nursing Education

Nursing Education for Mental Illness Management and Recovery 

Illness Management and Recovery In Nursing Education,Measurement Instruments for Psycho Education In Nursing,Main Aspects of Psycho Education In Nursing.

Illness Management and Recovery In Nursing Education

    It is becoming widely recognized that people with severe mental illness can participate actively in their own treatment. Illness management skills, ranging from greater knowledge of psychiatric illness and its treatment to coping skills and relapse prevention strategies, play a critical role in people's recovery from mental illness. 

    While patient preparation to use some of these strategies is available in some settings, no empirically supported programs (such as the Arthritis Self Management Program) are in widespread use (Mueser et al., 2002). This represents the level of development of these services. 

    Other challenges face the mental health field in fully development of an appropriate patient education (psychoeducation) model. A nationally representative sample of adults with a self-reported mental health problem were found to have lower literacy than did other adults, even when education and other predictors of literacy were controlled. 

    Low literacy is likely to limit the accuracy and validity of standardized diagnostic and outcome measures and to mean that written and educational materials are not understood by the patients. In addition, people with low literacy may be unable to understand medication labels or follow their often-complex medical regimens (Sentell & Shumway, 2003). 

Measurement Instruments for Psycho Education In Nursing

    A performance based measure of medication management for persons with schizophrenia (Medication Management Ability Assessment or MMAA) uses role play of simulated prescribed medication regimens and asks the patient to hand the required pills (dried beans) to the tester at the appropriate time. MMAA requires 15 minutes to administer. 

    Its I-week test retest reliability was 96. In general, patients under medicated significantly in this test, with patients performing less well than normal controls and those with more severe cognitive deficits per forming worst. Next steps in development of the MMAA include comparison with drug blood levels, and prospective and intervention trials to determine its sensitivity to changes in psychiatric symptoms (Patterson et al., 2002).

    While research is very important to progress in treating mental health problems, there is a concern that ill subjects may not be able to understand well enough to provide informed consent to research participation. 

    Buckles et al. (2003) have devised a test of the elements of informed consent in the Code of Federal Regulations for a simple non treatment research protocol and found that those with very mild and mild dementia could answer them while those with moderate dementia could not . 

    Trials with more complex designs including placebo randomization and serious adverse events may be much more difficult to understand. The authors suggest developing such a test for each trial, to provide an objective measure of this one element (understanding) for informed consent. It should be noted that mildly demented individuals benefited from repetition of the informed consent information. 

Main Aspects of Psycho Education In Nursing 

    In general, psycho education for persons with mental health problems focuses on improving the patient's and family's illness management skills, decreasing effective relapse and inter episode symptoms, and improving functional outcome. Development and testing of interventions and measurement of outcomes are at early stages of development.